Saturday, April 20, 2019

PREHISTORIC ANIMATION - PALEOLITHIC THAUMATROPES?



Illustration of bird and cage
thaumatrope. Public Domain.

Even if we do not remember, or ever knew, what they are called, we all remember thaumatropes from our childhood as the classic illustration of the bird in a cage thaumatrope will remind us. Another popular one from history is made with a vase on one side and a bunch of flowers on the other. As you spin it the flowers appear to be in the vase, and the bird in the cage. Now it seems possible that the thaumatrope was invented a very long time ago.


Bone disc from Mas d'Azil, France.
Photo paleomanias.co, Public Domain.

In their 2012 paper from Antiquity, Azema and Rivere propose that engraved bone discs found in Paleolithic excavations might function as thaumatropes. In 2997 Florent Rivere was studying paleolithic bone discs cut from the shoulder blades of large animals (bison or deer). These had almost universally been classified as buttons or pendants by their discoverers. (Another suggestion was spindle whorls, but small size suggests that they would be ineffective in that role). Noting that some were decorated on both sides with animals shown in different positions he and Azema hypothesized that they could be strung on a cord of sinew or plant fiber and rotated as a thaumatrope.


Bone disc from Mas d'Azil, France.
Photo paleomanias.co, Public Domain.

"One of the most convincing cases is that of a bone disc some 3.1cm in diameter found in 1868 by M. Hardy in the Laugerie-Basse rockshelter in the Dordogne and published in 1872. One can see a herbivore, a doe or more likely a chamois from the shape of the ear and horn, the shape of the tail and small lines along the head. The animal is shown in two different positions, standing on one side of the disc and lying on the other.  .  .  .  . We then had the idea that rapidly pivoting the object at 180 degrees (back and forth) would induce an optical effect in terms of retinal persistence, the capacity of the eye to retain an image already seen superimposed on the images being seen." (p. 321) In other words, by rapidly rotating the object about a horizontal pivot both sides would be seen in rapid succession, and the images would fuse because of retinal persistence.


Bone disc from Laugerie-Bas,
France. Public Domain.

"Other Magdalenian bone discs, whole or fragmented, seem to offer similar examples of animation. A mammoth from Raymonden (Dordogne) has an eye that opens (circular profile) and closes (almond shaped profile) while the mouth half opens. - A disc found at the site of La Tuiliere at Saint-Leon-sur-Vezere (Dordogne) shows the movement of an equid, from right to left, in three successive images. At Mas d'Azil (Ariege), a bone disc shows a sort of 'morphone', recording the passage of a young calf to adulthood." (p. 323)

Does any of this prove anything, well no, in fact I find myself a little skeptical of most of these conclusions. Based upon the listed subject matter I am not convinced that most of these would be effective illusions (on the order of the bird in the cage or the flowers in the vase). The mammoth winking it's eye does sound like an effective illusion however. But, if true, all this suggests a wonderful insight, that our Paleolithic forebears had invented this 19th century toy many, tens of thousands of years ago. An exciting possibility indeed. We know they were smart enough.

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this you should read the original report listed below.

REFERENCES:

Azema, Marc, and Florent Rivere,
2012 Animation in Palaeolithic Art: A Pre-Echo of Cinema, Antiquity Publications Ltd., Antiquity 86 (2012):316-324, http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/086/ant0860316.htm

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